After the Storm
Allison Maria Rodriguez
b&w video, 6 minutes, 2007

Artist Statement

The piece entitled “After the Storm” attempts to explore the anxiety of the psychological instability internalized after a trauma as a characteristic of PTSD.  The barren domestic setting represents a mind attempting to organize, attempting to negotiate the collapse of language inherent in the integration of a horrific event into one’s conceptualization of reality and comprehension of self.  Though there is a feeling of intense isolation in the piece, it is not a safe isolation, and the highly agitated subject turns to structured methodologies of thought to grasp some form of control over the perceived unpredictability of this new reality.   Through a dialectic of disassociation and overwhelming feeling, domesticity and institutionalization, interior and exterior, “After the Storm” illustrates the battle of anxiety, of the storm after the storm.   With many soldiers currently returning home from the war in Iraq, this piece attempts to ignite discourse in light of a new awareness of the prevalence of PTSD.